Season 12, the latest PvP season, starts on October 2nd. There are new Honor and Conquest quartermasters selling ilvl 464-483 gear. This gear is pretty good for increasing your ilvl and starting dungeons--unlike past expansions, the PvP stats do not cut into the PvE itemization.

There are two new PvP stats in Mists: PvP Power and PvP Resilience. PvP Power increases the damage you do to other players as well as the healing you do to other players in PvP situations. PvP Resilience continues to be a defense stat. These two stats will only work in PvP situations, helping to ensure that PvE gear will remain weaker. Yon can filter by these stats now in our database.

Initially, ilvl 464 gear was available with Honor Points. Blizzard realized that this was blowing PvE Justice Point gear out of the water, and adjusted the ilvl accordingly.

Gear Costs

iIf you have Honor Points saved up from Cataclysm, you can spend this gear on Dreadful items. Conquest Points can once again be earned through Arena, Battlegrounds, and Rated Battlegrounds. The Conquest cap for this first week is 1650, with 1350 points earnable from Arena and normal Battlegrounds.

Bashiok

We've just applied a hotfix that removes the faction requirements for Justice gear.

Shado-Pan and August Celestial factions will no longer require Golden Lotus faction to purchase this gear. This will allow players who have reached level 90 to have additional sources of item level (ilevel) 450 gear to progress into the Dungeon Finder Heroic dungeons more readily.

Players who are looking to purchase this gear should seek out the following vendors:

Townlong Steppes:

Shadow-Pan - Rushin the Fox in Shado-Pan Garrison

All - Lo Pin in Niuzao Temple

Vale of Eternal Blossoms:

August Celestials - Sage Lotusbloom or Sage Whiteheart in the Horde and Alliance Shrines

To view an updated version of this guide for Patch 5.1, please click here.

There's a new legendary quest series in Mists of Pandaria and anyone that's 90 can begin working on it. Multiple people in your raid can work on it at the same time, and it can even be completed in LFR. We'll show you what you need to get started this week.

A few things set this apart from past legendaries:

All players in a raid can work on the legendary questline at the same time.

Legendaries are for everyone. Players complete quests for legendary gems, which are then socketed into Sha-Touched weapons from raids. There are nine weapons classified as Sha-Touched, covering all possible specs.

With this system, guild are only limited by the number of Sha-Touched weapons they see each week.

Legendary gems can be placed into weapons from LFR. Quest items can also be looted in LFR.

This legendary series will span the expansion, with more elaborate rewards each tier.

The reward for this first tier is an epic weapon with a legendary gem, not an actual legendary weapon.

This guide provides quick facts for every Mists of Pandaria faction: where their quartermaster is located, how to gain reputation, and rewards. You can visit Wowhead's faction pages for more information, as well as our reputation guides, which have been updated for 5.4.

Eight factions originally shipped with Mists of Pandaria: four have epic gear rewards, while the other four have quirky vanity items. All have epic mounts and detailed tabards as Exalted rewards.

In later patches, two factions have been added for the Alliance and Horde (four total), as well as a raid-related faction and Timbermaw-style reputation grind.

Reputations are a bit different to grind in Mists of Pandaria--the old system of equipping a tabard and farming dungeons has been removed. Tabards only serve vanity purposes now and reputation is gained by doing daily quests. Each faction has a compelling story behind it and the daily quests are interesting and varied, such as completing a racecourse on a cloud serpent.

Patch 5.4 Reputation Changes

Justice Point and Valor Point gear no longer requires reputation and has undergone cost changes.

The Golden Lotus has undergone significant changes and many daily quests were removed.

Patch 5.2 Reputation Changes

Sunsong Ranch now has Work Order quests that can boost your reputation with two factions per day. You must have unlocked that faction's dailies in order to be eligible for Work Orders, which award +300 reputation.

Random dungeons and scenarios now have a "*Bonus Reputation:" line and a button that opens up your reputation panel. You'll get additional rep for completing your first scenario and dungeon of the day.

Patch 5.1 Reputation Changes

To help with alts and reputation farming, in 5.1, each faction now has a special commendation that can be purchased at Revered from quartermasters which unlocks a 100% bonus reputation gain for all characters on the account, such as Grand Commendation of Operation: Shieldwall. The primary character at Revered also earns double reputation as they work towards Exalted.

Quartermaster: Nat Pagle, Krasarang WildsHow to Gain Reputation: Various NPCs in Krasarang Wilds will give fishing daily quests that award reputation and skillups. There is also a quest chain in southern Dread Wastes that awards reputation.

Quartermaster: Sage Lotusbloom, Sage Whiteheart in Vale of Eternal BlossomsHow to Gain Reputation: Gaining reputation with The August Celestials is done through questing. Players will be sent to one of the four temples (Tiger in Kun-Lai, Crane in Krasarang, Serpent in Jade Forest, Ox in Townlong) after asking the Quartermaster where help is needed the most.

Players also gain reputation through a series of daily quests in the Cradle of Chi-Ji, the birthplace of the Red Crane, the Southern Celestial. It is currently where young Pandaren initiates train under Thelonius. What starts off as a playful battle with initiate Ellia Ravenmane turns into something much darker, as she is unhealthily obsessed with winning and fights out of despair. Her letters to you after defeat get more and more upset.

Quartermaster: How to Gain Reputation: Players can do a variety of dailies on the Isle of Thunder, which is a phased questing hub. However, at this point, the isle is most likely completely unlocked on your server.

Troves of the Thunder King:Players can purchase various items that can aid them in their Troves of the Treasure King speed runs.

Potion of Light Steps: Can be used to levitate over tile traps, fall at a reduced speed, and walk on water during the Troves of the Thunder King scenario. Taking damage will break this effect. Requires Friendly.

Sleep Dust: Puts the target in a magically-induced sleep for 25 sec seconds. Only works on humanoids and beasts within the Troves of the Thunder King secnario. Requires Honored.

A Common Rock: Can be used to distract an enemy or trigger a trap during the Troves of the Thunder King scenario. Requires Honored.

Frost Rune Trap: Places a rune that will freeze the next hostile target to step on it for 20 sec. Only usable in the Troves of the Thunder King scenario. Requires Revered.

Arcane Propellant: Consume an arcane focus to launch yourself forward. Can only be used during the Troves of the Thunder King scenario. Requires Revered.

Polymorphic Key: Magically reshape the key to fit any Ancient Gate in the Thunder King's Citadel for the Troves of the Thunder King scenario. Requires Exalted.

Empty Supply Crate: Place an empty Zandalari Supply Crate on the ground. Only usable in the Troves of the Thunder King scenario. Requires Exalted.

Quartermaster: Ambersmith Zikk, Dread WastesHow to Gain Reputation: To grind rep with The Klaxxi, you'll have to do a long questline in Dread Wastes starting with Psycho Mantid. This should get you to Honored at least. You can also turn in 20 Dread Shards from any mob for Seeds of Fear. There's a chain involving a killer pet, Kovok, too.

As you gain more reputation and proceed in the questline, you free more Klaxxi elders and get more and more dailies. At this point, you can request buffs from them, Enhancements and Augments.

Quartermaster: Tan Shin Tiao, Vale of Eternal BlossomsHow to Gain Reputation: As the keepers of Pandaren culture,The Lorewalkers go hand-in-hand with the spirit of Archaeology. The unusual reputation grind fits the nature of these cultural librarians, and reputation rewards enhance this profession.

Each monument in Pandaria is tied to an achievement. Upon visiting all the monuments for an achievement, you will be mailed a scroll that begins a quest. Both completing the achievement and turning in the scroll to Lorewalker Cho will give reputation. Turning in all the scrolls will net you Exalted.

When you turn the scroll in, Lorewalker Cho will automatically reenact a story for you that sheds light on Pandaren lore. You can hear these stories again anytime by talking to Lorewalker Cho.

Quartermaster: Agent Malley / Tuskripper GruknaHow to Gain Reputation: Players gain reputation through daily quests encouraging World PvP, as well as a epic questline involving many faction leaders. There are four possible quest hubs you can get sent to, and six contested areas players can capture for buffs.

Quartermaster: San Redscale, The Jade ForestHow to Gain Reputation: Gaining reputation is pretty fun: it's a mix of Netherwing and Wintersaber Trainers. You'll start off with a cloud serpent egg and raise the hatched serpent to maturity, doing daily quest that involve competitive races along the way. You can also turn in eggs for additional reputation: Onyx To Goodness.

How to Gain Reputation: Emperor Shaohao is a new faction on the Timeless Isle. There are no "mandatory" epics to grind out for this reputation--it's all about killing things on the Timeless Isle for vanity loot.

Reputation for this faction is primarily earned by killing Yaungol on the Timeless Isle. There is one daily quest, Path of the Mistwalker. This reputation grind is meant to be in the style of Timbermaw Hold, which is long and only for true reputation lovers.

Quartermaster: Rushi the Fox, Townlong SteppesHow to Gain Reputation: The Shado-Pan daily hub is located in western Townlong Steppes. Daily quests are selected from three sets of quest hubs, which all give +250 rep, except for the final quest which is 350 rep.

With each hub comes a special buff as well as a choice of three companions that will help DPS. When first starting out, players can "recruit" more companions by defeating them in combat, such as The Challenger's Ring: Hawkmaster Nurong.

Quartermaster: Gina Mudclaw, Valley of the Four WindsHow to Gain Reputation:Gaining reputation with The Tillers, in Valley of the Four Winds, is much more complex than any other Pandaria faction. You'll harvest a variety of crops yielding everything from vegetables to profession materials, gain reputation through a series of quests to expand your farm, and also gain friendship with 10 Tiller NPCs who enhance your farm in Halfhill.

The Tillers have three main components:

Farming: how to plant, grow, and maintain crops, as well as how to expand a farm.

Tillers Union: the main questline in which the player wins union votes from Halfhill residents, daily quests, and Tillers reputation rewards.

Friendship: NPCs have their own "friendship" bars--becoming their "Best Friend" allows you to unlock additional rewards for your farm.

We compiled a comprehensive list of the best quest rewards, all level 90 dungeon gear, rare crafted gear, and Justice Point reputation items you'll come across in your first week in Pandaria. To see what rewards you'll get from questing in earlier zones, check out our zone preview.

PvE Gear Levels

Heroic Dungeons: ilvl 463 with a chance for an ilvl 476 epic from the last boss.

Justice Point gear: ilvl 458. There used to be a reputation requirement but this has been removed.

Crafted gear: ilvl 450.

BoEs: epics drop from mobs in Dread Wastes and heroics. Let me know if you find Perculia's Peculiar Signet! In addition, lower-level epics are zone-wide drops from all rare spawns in the zone.

This guide covers select LFR pieces for comparison. Since the majority of raids (including LFR) will be delayed for a month, we will do a post in a week covering the epics from all raid instances, Valor Point gear, and crafted gear.

Today we have a quick overview of all the profession changes and additions in Mists of Pandaria to help you out as you're leveling--new trainers, profession perks, recipes, ways to discover new recipes, and items that will sell for a lot on the AH.

A new type of artifact is added in Mists of Pandaria--pristine solves. These solves are enhanced versions of common-quality solves. Completing them will create a quest item, which can be turned in to the Lorewalkers and displayed in their museum. The chance for creating a pristine version of an artifact instead of a common one is completely random.

Archaeology has gotten many improvements in Mists of Pandaria:

You get six digs instead of three.

The resulting item is not a white that turns into vendor trash. Instead, it is turned into a crated box--which stacks!

Blizzard

And the world's gonna know your name
And you'll be on the walls of the hall of fame

Think you're the fastest at running dungeons? Mists of Pandaria's new Challenge Mode gives you an opportunity to put your speed and teamwork skills to the test. And if you want to know how you rank compared to other players from your realm, you can now view your realm's fastest times by accessing the Challenge Mode Leaderboards in the Community Section.

Once in the leaderboards section, you can view the fastest runs of each dungeon and realm – down to the millisecond. Each party's class makeup and faction is listed, with easy access to individual character profiles. There is also the option to filter by party composition so you can see how you stack up against parties similar to your own.

If you're logged in, the Challenge Mode Leaderboards also offer easy access to your guild's Challenge Mode section, where you can view the top times achieved by members of your guild. In the near future, we will be adding a region-wide leaderboard, as well as a Challenge Mode section in the character profile where you can view your personal bests and medals.

In the character profile, we've added an area on the Pets & Mounts page to feature your selected Battle Pet slots.

Every voice matters to us. If you like what you see or if you have any suggestions for design tweaks to these updates, we’d love to hear from you. Just post in the comments or on our website forums and let us know what you think.

Blizzard

Boss NPCs in the level 85-89 bracket are now level 90, and their guards are now level 89.

Isle of Conquest

Boss NPCs in the level 85-89 bracket are now level 90, and their guards are now level 89.

Boss NPCs in the level 90 bracket are new level 91, and their guards are now level 90.

Classes

Druid

Thrash periodic damage has been increased by 60%.

Monk

Keg Smash damage has been increased by 50%.

Keg Smash can now hit every target in range (was previously a maximum of three).

Warrior

Wild Strike damage has been increased by 18%.

Execute damage has been decreased by 7%.

Mortal Strike damage has been increased by 5%.

Dungeons and Raids

Bastion of Twilight

Players are no longer able to earn the Feat of Strength "I Can't Hear You Over the Sound of How Awesome I Am".

Stormstout Brewery

Ook-Ook should now suffer impacts from players on barrels who hit him immediately after another barrel does.

Pet Battles

Battle pet quests are no longer flagged for Mists of Pandaria only, and can be accepted by players who have not yet upgraded.

Slicing Wind can now hit multiple times on pets, regardless of their family type.

Crimson moth and Wharf Rat should appear as expected in the Pet Journal.

Quests

Players will now receive AOE credit for sinking both the Bladefist Reaper and Stygian Scar while in proximity of the ships being destroyed during the quest "Unleash Hell".

Players no longer remain in the Orgrimmar Gunship phase of "Into the Mists" once the quest is completed.

In the quest "Strongarm Tactics", players should now receive credit for killing Gyro-mechanic Lavenderp or Master Engineer Cogswing if the other NPC is slain by a second player.

Players should be able to turn in the quest "The Elder's Instruments" and then see and interact with Pearlkeeper Fujin.

The quests "Regroup", "You're Either With Us Or...", and "Face to Face with Consequence" should be offered automatically to characters who enter Honeydew Glade after leaving Thunderhold without receiving them from General Nazgrim and Taren Zhu.

In the "Wicked Wikkets" quest, paratroopers how drop the quest item Alliance Service Medallion 100% of the time.

The cutscene that plays during the quest "The Jade Serpent" cannot be cancelled by the player. This is intended.

Bug Fixes

Players should not receive duplicate messages in chat channels.

Crossing a zone boundary on a multi-passenger mount should no longer dismount passengers.

Mists of Pandaria, the fourth World of Warcraft expansion, went live on September 25th. We've rounded up our daily beta previews and created a guide to everything that's new--from Tier Armor to neon Pandaren hair streaks.

General Changes

Some quality-of-life changes and clarifications relevant to Mists' launch:

You will not need to log out at midnight PST to play Mists. You will get a quest at midnight directing you to quest in the new zones, and will be able to create Pandaren on the character selection screen.

Quest rewards in Mists are dynamic. This means that you will see options based on your class and specialization. Our database pages show all the possible options and by clicking on the spec icons, you can see the possible rewards.

You may also want to check out our 5.0.4 Guide from last month to read up on recent changes.

Classes

You may have seen some of the class changes in 5.0.4 with the talent tree revisions, but there are even more changes in Mists of Pandaria. Our class previews highlight all versions of Tier 14, Challenge Mode, and Season 12 PvP armor models, as well as new abilities, level 90 talents, and major changes.

Dungeons

There are nine dungeons players can run at level 90. Six are new to Pandaria and three are revisions of familiar favorites. Heroic dungeons will reward ilvl 463 gear, with a slight chance of an ilvl 476 epic from the last boss. Completing Glory of the Pandaria Hero awards Reins of the Crimson Cloud Serpent.

Challenge Modes are a new type of dungeon added in Mists of Pandaria. Players will race to complete dungeons and receive rewards (mounts, transmoggable gear, titles, Pandaria teleports) based on their times, and super-competitive players will compete on realm leaderboards. The catch is that your gear scales to ilvl 463, so you'll never be able to really outgear it. Our guide has all the rewards and achievements listed, including unique armor sets.

Pet Battles

Pet Battles are a laid-back minigame added in Mists of Pandaria. While the gameplay is not meant to be competitive, you can get pretty wrapped up in catching and leveling up hundreds of pets around Pandaria. Check out Wowhead's pet battle preview. There are 10 pet family schools, each with strengths and weaknesses against different schools, but there are plenty of achievements that just reward you for collecting if fighting isn't your style.

Collect:In Mists of Pandaria, you not only collect vanity pets, but also wild pets. Plus, you can name them! Completing a bunch of battle pet achievements nets you Jade Tentacle and the title The Tamer.

There are hundreds of wild pets out there--some of which are unique to certain zones, or only spawn at a certain hour. To collect wild pets, you'll need to find and battle them in the wild, attempting to capture them at low health. We've built an interactive world map letting you browse what pets are in each zone, and we also made a visual database for battle pets letting you find the perfect pet!

Level:Once you've picked a team of three pets, you can take them out into the world to battle. Your pet will get experience based on the opponent it fights and if it stays alive through the match. Healing pets is very slow, so don't be reckless.

There are 25 experience levels and if you've raised 75 pets to level 25, you're rewarded with Singing Cricket Cage.

Pet Tamers:In addition to battling pets in the wild and anonymously queueing against other players (known as PvP battles), you can battle a variety of quirky pet tamers around Azeroth--they even show up on our map. As you work your way up to trickier teams, you unlock more daily quests such as Taming Outland. Defeating the trainers also rewards you with Sack of Pet Supplies, which has a chance to contain Porcupette.

Professions

In addition to new profession perks and consumables, many professions received vanity items for extra flavor, including mounts and pets. We have all the recipes, reagents, profession perks, 3D models, and vanity items listed in our guides below.

The rare crafting item in Mists of Pandaria will be Spirit of Harmony, which is needed to create most high-level items or costly transmutes, like Mystery of the Mists. It is made from forming 10 Mote of Harmony together, which are world drops. These are BoP, so you'll be out there farming for a while. Check out Blizzard's official summary here.

PvP Power and PvP Resilience are new stats in Mists. PvP Power increases the damage you do to other players as well as the healing you do to other players in PvP situations. PvP Resilience continues to be a defense stat. These two stats will only work in PvP situations, helping to ensure that PvE gear will remain weaker. Yon can filter by these stats now in our database.

There are three tiers of PvP armor: Dreadful (Honor Points), Malevolent (Conquest Points), and Malevolent Elite (Conquest Points + 2200 rating). Vendors can be found on the Great Wall--Horde vendors by Kun-Lai, Alliance vendors by Dread Wastes.

Check out our Season 12 Gear Preview for a look at all the new items, including Dreadful, Malevolent, and Malevolent Elite gear, new weapons, and all accessories.

Reputations

Reputations are much more dynamic in Mists. The old method of farming reputation via a tabard is gone--you'll do constantly-changing dailies and you won't need to grind to Exalted if you want epic gear. Gear rewards are at Honored and Revered--only players that want vanity items need to max out reputation.

At Revered with the following factions, players can purchase epic ilvl 489 items with Valor Points. These factions also have fun Exalted rewards like mounts:

The Lorewalkers: Faction that sells archaeology rewards and unlocks cutscenes showing Pandaria's mythology. Fly around the world and find monuments for reputation.

Order of the Cloud Serpent: You'll need to hit Exalted with this faction if you want to use Cloud Serpent mounts. Along the way, you'll gain a cloud serpent mount and be able to use cloud serpents as battle pets.

The Tillers: Grow your own farm and harvest daily crops. In addition, many Tiller NPCs have friendship meters and give you special rewards if you do additional quests for them.

All factions have elaborate tabards as Exalted rewards: check out our visual preview.

Raids

There are three raids in Mists of Pandaria, as well as two outdoor bosses. All of our database pages have the Dungeon Journal strategy and loot tables up.

Some changes have been made to LFR: the loot is not meant to feel as powerful as it did in Tier 13, and the LFR instances will be launching weeks after MoP's release. Ideally, this means that raiders will have a chance to get upgrades before LFR opens and will not feel forced to run it. You can read more about it here.

There is a new legendary weapon chain that appears to span the whole expansion--and the weapons can be used by any class. Tier 14 is just the first step of this series: players are rewarded by putting +500 stat legendary gems into "Sha-Touched" weapons, which can even be looted in LFR. Check out our guide for all the quests and eligible weapons.

Learn more about how to acquire Valor Points for raiding epics here and the gear ilvls associated with every instance and difficulty level.

Scenarios

Scenarios fill the role of group elite quests in Mists of Pandaria. Players can queue with several friends--no specs or specific classes required--and do these quick runs. Completing each run will award you with an ilvl 463 BoE with random stats, and several achievements can be completed in each. Learn more about the design process in Dev Watercooler: Scenarios.

Theramore's Fall: Alliance and Horde get separate scenarios covering different parts of this tragedy.

Transmogrification

We updated our transmogrification database to have over 100 new sets. Whether you're a rogue that wants to look like a Tier 14 Heroic Druid or unsure if your quest reward has a unique color before deleting it, we have all the information. We've also updated our Same Model As tab to show matching results for all Mists of Pandaria items.

Be sure to click on the images in our previews below to view them in our Flash 3D Modelviewer.

Vanity Items

Blizzard has wanted to bring back quirky exploration details that were a hallmark of vanilla WoW. There are many neat vanity things you can find around the world and dozens of items to collect.

Black Market Auction House: This new type of Auction House has rare mounts and pets, as well as removed Tier 3 armor and current raid epics up for sale (without a buyout). These items for sale are randomly generated by the server--players cannot put items up for sale here.